


devastation hands

by skyenapped



Category: Hollyoaks
Genre: Character Study, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, make warren fox bi 2k17
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-11-01 00:37:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10910718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyenapped/pseuds/skyenapped
Summary: Ste hates being alone, and his tendency to cling to whoever cares about him in the slightest leads him right to...Warren Fox.





	devastation hands

**Author's Note:**

> This Ste/Warren friendship is just melting my cold, dead heart so I had to do this. Also, Stendan's my ride or die, of course, and I love BB unconditionally so any digs at him in this are obviously from Warren. 
> 
> I didn't bring up Ste's HIV in this because honestly I wouldn't have been able to do it justice in a short fic like this. So let's assume Warren already knows, I guess.

*

“Why you doing all this for me anyway?” Ste asked. He narrowed his eyes at Warren, only fleetingly suspicious; naive as always. It had been so long since anyone had offered him charity, advice, or anything like friendship that he’d take it where he could get it. Sure, he’d had Harry, but it had fallen apart by Ste’s third month in jail while awaiting trial. Their relationship had been important, but impulsive; Ste felt undeserving of Harry’s blind martyrdom and Harry eventually felt his loyalty fade as Ste continued to shut him out. They parted ways for good across a jail table and that was that. Ste knew they’d been a castle of sand all along.

He’d floundered in jail waiting on his trial for months before realizing James wasn’t exactly putting much effort, if any, into getting him out. And with Harry out of the picture, James had no incentive, no promise of a sweet young thing owing him, and he all but threw Ste’s case away. He had doubts about his guilt, of course, but Ste was so beneath him that James didn’t care whether he went to prison or not.

There was one person who did, although unlikely. Warren had threatened James on Tuesday and by Thursday he’d raised enough reasonable doubt that Ste being convicted was virtually impossible. Basically, James had crumbled under Warren’s blackmail -- and it helped that he was slightly terrified of the man, knowing his past and all that. James might’ve been a selective sociopath, but he drew the line at murder, and Warren freaked him out, even if he refused to admit it.

So he’d quietly but dutifully did his job, and by the end of the summer Ste walked out of court a free man, exonerated of Amy’s murder. Ryan fled, and Ste got custody of the kids, and was now faced with the task of rebuilding his life.

He didn’t expect to be sitting across from Warren Fox, of all people, heavy with gratitude for a man who had never done anything except terrorize the love of Ste’s life. It was one thing to lecture Ste, to try to get him off drugs, to give him a car and help him make money - but a whole other story to take the time to do his own detective work and get him off murder charges. Particularly while Warren himself was reeling from the aftermath of killing Bart, looking over his shoulder, losing the twins and Sienna and Joel all in one fell swoop. Maybe he needed a distraction. Or maybe Ste was just the only connection he had left, and if he lost him, he’d truly and officially be completely alone. Even Warren Fox was afraid of that.

“Like I said, maybe I’m tired of seeing people throw their life away.” Warren leaned against the counter and folded his arms. “You got potential, kid, always did. Besides, we got no one left, do we?”

Ste shrugged and looked away sadly. Amy was dead. Brendan was in prison. Harry was gone, and along with that, so was Tony. He had his kids, of course, but it wasn’t the same. At the end of the day, there was no one else who gave a shit about him. Except Warren, apparently, and while Ste had tried to figure out if there was some elaborate plan to attack behind the altruism…he’d yet to find one. After all, with Brendan locked up, Warren really had no incentive to target Ste. His revenge had come with time.

“Suppose we don’t then, yeah? So what you going to do now? Leave Hollyoaks?”

Warren shook his head. His flat was empty and quiet ever since Sienna and Joel left, too wounded and guilty just knowing about Bart that they’d left and didn’t look back, but Warren was also tired of running.

“Got nowhere else to go. Do you?”

“No.”

They lingered in silence for a while, their history did too, unspoken but present. Never allies, never particularly enemies either. Just forever linked in some strange, tenuous, indescribable way through Brendan.

Ste stood up and walked closer to Warren. “Well...thank you. I don’t know what else to say. You didn’t have to do what you did for me.”

“You got another chance. What’re you gonna do with it?”

“Ain’t gonna throw it away, promise.”

Warren nodded. “We’ll see.”

“Got me kids back. Got somethin’ to live for again.”

“Alright, kid. Don’t blow it.”

 

*

Ste might have only spent six months in jail, but he found that re-acclimating to his freedom wasn’t easy. He struggled to find work again with a murder charge. Despite being found not guilty, the accusation still hung over him, still followed him wherever he went. He wasn’t exactly hiring material.

He was sat at The Dog drinking. The sun was setting. His mind wandered to the past, the future, ramping up his anxiety. Something was wrong, something besides the obvious, but he couldn’t place the feeling, although he knew he’d felt it before.

It took several more beers before he realized: he was lonely as hell.

He wound up at Warren’s door, haze of drunkenness fueling his bold intrusion. To his surprise, Warren didn’t question his arrival, just opened the door and let him in.

“Where’re your kids at?”

“My sister’s,” Ste answered. “I’m drunk.”

“No kidding. Fall off the wagon already?”

Ste wrinkled his nose, “No,” he said defensively. “Just needed to get off me head for a while.” He pointed to his temple. “My mind’s racing, right? Needed...to forget everything that’s happened.”

“And you came here then?”

“Got nowhere else to go, have I?”

“Well. I’d offer you a drink but I suppose you had enough tonight.”

Warren turned on the TV while Ste lingered in his kitchen. Eventually, he muttered, “Why do you like me?”

“Why do you asked so many questions?”

“Dunno. ‘Cause you never answer them.”

“Never said I liked you, kid. Satisfied?”

“No. You risked a lot to get me outta jail, yeah? What’d you get out of it?”

Warren sighed. “Let’s just say...losing Joel gave me a lot to think about. Maybe if I spent more time with him, he’d still be here. Guess what I’m sayin’ is, I got enough regrets. Besides, I could use you hangin’ around.”

“Wow. No one’s said that to me a while.”

“You’re not that bad, I guess. Hell, Brady put up with you for years. And we both know, he didn’t keep anyone else around that long, did he?”

Ste winced at the mention of Brendan’s name. “Except you.”

“I was just a means to an end though, wasn’t I?”

“Yeah but he’s still in a cell and you’re free now.”

“So are you, thanks to me. Besides, I served my time. And I got a lot less blood on my hands.”

Ste scoffed. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling, something between confusion and gratitude. Maybe it was because Warren was the closest thing he had to Brendan anymore. It didn’t make sense, and yet it comforted him. He figured he should be afraid of Warren, but he wasn’t. And when Warren stood up, Ste didn’t back away.

“Still drunk are you?”

“Room ain’t spinning anymore.”

Warren smirked and opened the fridge, took out a beer, and Ste wasn’t sure what made him do it - his general impulsiveness, his loneliness, maybe the combination of the two - but he crowded quickly into Warren’s space and kissed him.

It only lasted a couple seconds, and then Ste panicked, stepped back and anticipated the worst.

“S-sorry,” he stuttered. “I don’t why I--I’m just...I’m still a little drunk and all, right, and--”

“Relax, Ste,” Warren interrupted. “I’m not that bothered.”

“You’re not? I mean...you’re not gonna like, beat me up now?”

“Who do I look like?” Warren laughed. “Brendan Brady?”

Ste felt defensiveness rising in him, but he also knew Warren was right. Ironically, Warren had never hurt him nearly as much as Brendan. Never even targeted him to get back at Brendan. There’d been the whole beating when Warren was avenging Louise, but as usual, Ste figured he’d deserved it. And that was ancient history. Ultimately, their relationship had been relatively benign, really. Until now.

Warren gently shoved him in the shoulder. “Just joking you. Lighten up. You know, I get that Brendan saw somethin’ in you.”

“Yeah? What?”

“I don’t know yet. But it ain’t a punching bag.”

Ste shifted and changed the subject. “I know you’re...you know…”

“Straight?”

“Yeah. So I just...I wasn’t thinkin’ right, my head, it’s kind of a mess.”

Warren studied him closely. “Between you and me, I never had much luck with women now did I? They all ended up, well…”

“Dead?”

“You’re funny, I’ll give you that now.”

It wasn’t funny, really, but Ste had gone through so much shit he wasn’t that fazed by Warren’s past anymore. He’d been surrounded by murder his whole life, and he wasn’t exactly a saint himself; sparing a moment to think of Amy and his mother. He thought maybe he was bonding with Warren over their constant crisis of conscience, that is, whenever Warren’s truly flared up.

“What would you do?” Ste asked.

“If what?”

“If I kissed you again?”

Warren tensed a little but then shrugged. “I dunno. Why don’t you do it and find out?”

His words didn’t sound all that threatening, more like a friendly challenge. Ste felt like reality was rippling. Was he really doing this? Was he really making out with Warren Fox? He told himself stranger things had happened in his life. It crossed his mind that maybe Warren was only reciprocating because he got off on taking what used to be Brendan’s; what technically still was. Or maybe he was lonely, too. Ste decided he didn’t care which of two it was, he just let himself fall, fast and hard, and eventually...into Warren’s bed.

There was a familiarity to the weight on top of him, the strong arms that bracketed his shoulders. It reminded him of Brendan, in a way. Night and day from Harry, and maybe that was why they’d never worked out. If Ste had a type, Warren was the closest he’d found to it since Brendan went away. It was a bizarre sort of relief, and Ste expected a fallout, but at the moment, for the first time in months, he wasn’t thinking about the future.

He kissed Warren hungrily, desperately, and his fervor was returned. He wasn’t looking only for lust and pleasure, but for comfort, and he was finding it in Warren, of all people. He felt oddly protected. A wave of warmth engulfed him when the blanket was pulled up over them both.

Warren’s hands searched under Ste’s shirt, pushing it up and over his head. He hummed as he dragged his nails over the faint outline of Ste’s abs. “So this is what’s under here.”

“You thought about it?”

“I might’ve wondered what Brendan was on about. Didn’t sit around fantasizing. But maybe I like what I see.”

Ste smiled cautiously, and eventually relaxed into the touch. He felt sober quite suddenly. Everything was still and sharp with clarity - even his mind for a change. All the haze had cleared, and the racing thoughts slowed nearly to a halt. It wasn’t since Brendan that he could remember feeling like that. And sometimes it felt like a different lifetime altogether.

Warren’s hands were larger and slightly calloused - Ste wagered a bet that it was from the garage, or maybe the murders, ultimately deciding he didn’t particularly care as long as they were on him. The feeling was night and day with Harry, though Ste’s thoughts didn’t wander for very long. Someone else was finally taking the lead, and after it everything that had happened in the past four years - hell, in his whole life for that matter - he needed that.

He got lost for a moment, in the touching and quickened breaths, and then the weight on top of him felt less like another body and more like the gravity of what was happening.

“Wait-” he said, and Warren stopped.

“What, backing out on me already?”

Ste shook his head. “No. Just wonderin’ if you’re gonna regret this. Because if you are, then I--you said you got a lot of regrets. I don’t wanna be another one, right?”

“You won’t be, don’t worry. And it’s not like anybody has to know.”

Pausing to wonder if this was the start of his role in another sort of dirty little secret, Ste frowned.

“That’s not what I meant,” Warren said, like he could tell what Ste was thinking based solely on his expression. “‘Sides, sleeping with a bloke isn’t gonna make my reputation any worse, is it?” Then he tapped gently on the side of Ste’s face, “Now all you got to do is trust me. So...do you? Trust me?”

Ste hesitated, slightly lost in the blue eyes looking down at him, and no, they didn’t remind him in the slightest of someone he missed with fire, wind, and rain on a daily basis, all the way to his core. At least, he would never admit it.

And while he believed people could change - was even sold on the idea that Warren had ultimately softened around the edges - he also knew there parts of him that never would. That never could. History had taught him that the hard way, and he wondered only briefly if it was going to repeat itself. Then again, his heart was thrumming fast but his mind was content. So while he wasn’t convinced there would never be another scandal a la Foxy at some point in the future; a potential trail of devastation weaving a bloody path right through the village, Ste still felt safe in the same hands that had caused so much.

So he nodded, smiled a little, and whispered, “I trust you.”

Warren smiled back.

Maybe no one had ever called Ste Hay the most rational person in Chester. Maybe he didn’t care.

 

*

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Hopefully it wasn't too OOC, all things considered. Also, I've already mentally plotted out another fic in the same 'verse about what would happen if Brendan came back to find Ste dating Warren, besides the apocalypse.


End file.
